


The Mortal Hour

by Sherloqued



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 13:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11829693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloqued/pseuds/Sherloqued
Summary: This will be a police procedural, taking place in and around Boston, Massachusetts.   Ennis Del Mar is a state homicide detective investigating a series of murders in and around River Falls, Massachusetts, an economically depressed former mill town, as part of a team including Alma Beers Del Mar, Director of the Victim/Witness Services Department, assembled by and under the direction of Jack Twist, the County District Attorney.    Ennis is a divorced father of a teenaged daughter, Junior Del Mar, and Alma is his ex-wife.   Lureen Newsome, Jack's ex-wife, is a news reporter for the local television station, and they have a young son together.  One of the murders is of a Catholic priest from a quiet, southeastern Massachusetts parish.Ennis and Jack are brought together during the investigation and the subsequent trial of the accused murderer, the troubled young Timothy Finn, and the unraveling mystery challenges their own beliefs and perceptions of right and wrong, and the meaning of justice.





	The Mortal Hour

There was nothing more stately, nor more solemn, than a policeman’s funeral.   One of their own, borne in a sea of dark blue uniforms, the pageantry of the officers on horseback, the bagpipes, the gun salutes.  
  
And the order.  As if the participants were trying to restore a sense of order to what had been disturbed.  As he stood by in respectful silence, it always put Homicide Detective Ennis Del Mar in mind of his own father, who had been killed in the line of duty. 

 

* * *

 

The crime scene had been grisly.   Det. Del Mar had shouldered his way past a few curious onlookers outside, shown his badge to the local cops on duty, gotten a nod to go ahead after a word of warning from the State forensics team who were taking photos and gathering evidence.   Every one of them suddenly conscious of their jurisdiction and the authority of the State when the homicide dicks showed up.   _They'd all have their noses out of joint because it happened on their turf, reluctant to give up control_.  
  
"Don't disturb my crime scene, Del Mar."  the Chief Medical Examiner and head of the forensics team had warned him.   Dr. Leonard Frawley, being his usual cooperative self.   Ennis didn't know him well; just that he was very good at his job and could be a real asshole at times.  
  
 Det. Del Mar only smiled.  "What have you got here, Len."  
  
They walked past the yellow crime scene tape and up the front steps of the rectory at St. Catherine’s Church.

 

* * *

 

The murder victim, the parish priest, had been found lying face down in a pool of dark blood, still wearing his priestly vestments, stabbed many more times than would have been necessary to kill him.   Overkill, the criminologists called it - when someone had killed with that much rage.   By all accounts, the father had been a much loved and respected member of the community, and had not been touched by allegations of child abuse in his past.   The body didn't appear to have been moved.

A forensic pathologist removed a thermometer from the poor dead man's liver with latex gloved hands and established the approximate time of death, reporting the information as dispassionately as if he were talking about the New England weather.  
   
"Looks like the weapon."   Tara Martin, one of the forensic techs, called from the small kitchen of the priest's residence after following the blood trail, and photographs were taken of a large kitchen knife as it lay, that appeared to have been dropped in haste, bouncing and leaving a crimson pattern of elliptical whorls as it had slid across the worn linoleum.   It was boxed, tagged and initialed. 

 

* * *

 

Jack Twist got into his old blue GMC pickup truck that had over a hundred thousand miles on it.  Lureen used to hate it, back when they were married, it wasn't the proper image for a professional couple such as they.   After the divorce, they’d sold the stately historic Colonial home they had bought in River Falls’ North End, where in more prosperous times the homes of wealthy sea captains and textile merchants had been built, that had ample closet space for Lureen’s clothing allowance as a field reporter and weekend anchor for Channel Six news, and he had bought the much smaller beach house - a one and a half story weathered Cape.  
  
Now he could hear the ocean at night, drown out the thoughts of the day, hear himself think, and take Baily, short for Bailiwick, their chocolate Lab, out for long runs with him, his preferred form of exercise, on the beach.

That was back when he was an a young and idealistic civil rights attorney and Lureen an aspiring journalist; they’d met in shared Constitutional Law and Ethics classes at college, where he was pre-law and she was a political science major, formed a relationship from late nights studying over coffee together, or talking over a couple of beers and listening to bands at one of the many clubs in the area, when they both thought they could change the world; Lureen with a kind of noblesse oblige instilled in her by generations of her family's wealth and privilege, he from his own life's experiences.  Each on separate, but parallel paths, but which had intersected for a brief and pleasant time.  
  
For some reason, the girl who could have had any guy she wanted homed in on the guy she could never really have like a beacon, but he remembered with a twinge that he had enjoyed all the attention, and the ego boost, and that the Newsome family connections just might have helped open a few career doors for him.  His student housing had been a room the size of a large walk-in closet, in an old converted home that he shared with four other people, but Lureen, with her family’s wealth, had an off-campus condominium apartment, where they had also spent many hours, Lureen always in a hurry to get him into her bed.

He had loved Lureen, but not in the way he should have, with a strong physical desire for her.  It wasn't her fault.   Over the years, somewhere between the long hours working as a young associate at the law firm, and coming to terms with the man he had begun to know he really was deep in his heart, their relationship had become a platonic one.   A beautiful and vital woman such as Lureen deserved better, deserved a man who did desire her, and there had never been a shortage of them interested in her.   Of course, it had only been a matter of time before she met someone, and what had started as another harmless flirtation and innocent friendship became something serious.  She eventually had an affair, and asked Jack for a divorce.  
  
Jack deserved better too.  Like the words of the song he’d heard that morning driving to the office on the classic rock station he listened to, he didn’t want to wake up some day, later in life, time having passed like a river, not recognizing himself anymore when he looked in the mirror, ideals long gone and wondering how he’d gotten where he’d ended up.  
  
Compromise - he made his living making the best of a situation for others, but didn’t want his life to become one.

He’d come to terms with all of that years ago, and they divorced amicably, or as best they could, for the benefit of their son Bobby, and he left his job at the law firm for the position of Assistant DA.  Then, later on, he ran for District Attorney as a private, but generally out gay man, and he’d won the election.

He found that people liked this unassuming yet remarkable young lawyer, who tried very hard to stay unremarkable as he went about his day-to-day life, as they would see him doing his chores and errands on the weekends, just a regular guy like them, or shaking hands with people at political rallies and fundraising events when he had first run for the office of District Attorney, from family Little League games and barbecues to visits to Senior Centers.  He enjoyed being part of the community, which was predominantly Roman Catholic, and was proud to represent the people here, where he himself had grown up.  But when he put on one of his crisp white shirts and well-cut suits, and adjusted his tie before entering the office or the courtroom in the morning, he was all business. 

 

* * *

 

The sunset was magnificent.   He could see across the salt marsh to the restaurant neaby, where people were enjoying watching it on the deck, the echoes of talking and laughing floating across the beach as he cooled down from his run, walking back to the house with Baily.  
  
He turned the key in the lock; opened the back door to the house, and Baily bounded in first, all wet and sandy from romping on the beach, and shook himself off, all over the all-season carpet.   Baily enjoyed the beach and had happily worn himself out, collapsing onto his plaid doggie bed and Jack let him rest; he could have a bath later.  
  
"Good boy."   Jack crooned, vigorously drying him off with a towel.  "Good boy."  
  
He loved this house.   It had quite a history to it, was once a restaurant itself.    In the morning sun, if you squinted just right, you just might be able to still make out the restaurant's name fading into the shake shingles of the roof.    Its collection of asymmetrical windows were unique, and the wind-twisted pitch pines in the front border reminded him of large bonsai.    And the view of the ocean, well, it was just incredible and the major selling point of an older house that was beginning to show signs of settling and would need some restoration, which he was more than happy to do himself, but which made for an extortionate final sale price.    The only house at the end of a penninsula that jutted out into the Atlantic, with its own half-moon slice of beach.   He walked into the kitchen, refilled a bowl of water for Baily and after taking a shower, popped open a can of beer from out of the refrigerator for himself, taking it out onto the deck.  He loved it, and the Lureen he once knew would have too.    Now she was part of the 'Establishment' that they used to playfully deride together, making toasts with wine in plastic glasses, vowing to have no part of, on sunset evenings at the beach such as this.   Only now she seemed to have bought into it entirely.   Lu had been his best friend back then.   Now she'd probably just tell him to grow up.  
  
Well, at least she was happy now.    Whatever guilt he had carried about marrying a woman he realized too late that he didn't love could now be put aside, they had made sure that Bobby was taken care of first, and she would be able to move on, start her life over.   Now if only he could.    The house would help with that.   He remembered the files sitting in his briefcase from Det. Del Mar, but they could wait; he continued to relax into the weekend, leaning back into the comfortable cushions of the chaise lounge on the deck, closing his eyes.    _Detectve Del Mar._   He was attractive, Jack thought, in a rough, laconic sort of way.   He'd met him once before, briefly, he remembered, through his wife Alma, at some holiday office party or something.   Now ex-wife, he'd heard.

* * *

  
Ennis had his daughter visting for the weekend.   He'd better finish getting the place straighened up before she arrived, it looked like a disorganized crime scene.     He checked the lasagne in the oven; her favorite.    Then took out the ingredients for a salad from the refrigerator, rinsed them under the tap, began to slice a tomato with a kitchen knife.  
  
As usual, he'd been spending most of his time working on a case.  

Ennis had a gut feeling about him, when the kid looked up at him with watery blue eyes, a tentative smile.  Ennis just didn’t think he had it in him to commit such a crime. There was an aura of goodness about him.  Ennis trusted his instincts, instincts that had become well-honed over the years.  But his fingerprints were all over the crime scene, a matching footprint too, and the DA’s office felt they had a good case.  Ennis had met the DA briefly at some office function or other, when he had still been married to Alma, who still worked in the DA’s office in Victim Services.

 

* * *

 

Time was when Timothy thought he would go into the priesthood himself, he had visions and dreams.  He knew he had the calling.


End file.
